Posts Tagged ‘efficiency’

We got a brief reprieve from $1.30/L gas prices when oil tanked (zing), but less than a month later we’re nearly back to where we started. Alberta may be oil country, but that doesn’t mean people are willing to get bent over at the pump forever. We still love our V8s (and always will), but it’s starting to make more and more sense to pick up a more efficient commuter. It’s not just gas prices, but an entire culture of eco-friendliness which is driving the push for efficient vehicles elsewhere in North America. Consumers are demanding green cars and the manufacturers are being forced to respond. Hybrids and electrics are stealing the headlines right now, but North America is also seeing a reemergence of the sub-compact segment which hasn’t had much hold here in over a decade. While Canadian sales of sedans like the Camry, Accord and Fusion dropped from 2013 to 2014, we saw double digit increases for small cars like the Accent, Fit, Yaris and Mirage.

Of course, not everybody wants a tiny hatchback, and a lot of people require more capable vehicles, which means going with something larger and, usually, far less efficient. Luckily for them, manufacturers are being pressured to increase efficiency across their entire range. CAFE regulations, which penalize manufacturers whose fleet doesn’t meet a minimum fuel efficiency requirement, have raised the bar for small passenger cars by over 40% since 2005. They will continue increasing it by another 5% annually until 2025 where they’ll mandate 60 mpg. This means that car makers don’t just need to offer a fuel efficient car to those who want one, they need to increase the efficiency of their entire line-up or pay significant penalties. Now technically CAFE only applies to cars built in the United States, but Canadian Environmental Protection Act was recently amended to include very similar provisions for cars built here.